On this Site

Whittington

WHITTINGTON, a parish in the hundred of
SCARSDALE, county of DERBY, 2¼ miles (N.) from
Chesterfield, containing 680 inhabitants. The living is
a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Derby, and diocese
of Lichfield and Coventry, rated in the king's books
at £7. 10. 10., and in the patronage of the Dean of
Lincoln. The church is dedicated to St. Bartholomew;
the chancel was built in 1827. The manufacture of
earthenware is here carried on. A free school was founded
in 1674, by Peter Webster, who, in 1678, gave £200 to
purchase lands for its endowment, and directed that
twenty children should be taught; and Joshua Webster,
in 1681, gave land in Whittington to be applied
for teaching ten children; the annual income arising
from these bequests is now about £32. 10., for which
twenty boys and ten girls receive free instruction, and
a small gratuity for shoes and books. A chalybeate
spring here was formerly much resorted to, and, for the
convenience of visitors, a cold bath was erected in 1769.

A public-house on Whittington moor is distinguished
by the name of the Revolution House, from the adjournment
to it of a select meeting of friends to liberty
and the Protestant religion, held on the moor early in
1688, at which the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Devonshire,
the Earl of Derby (afterwards Duke of Leeds),
Lord Delamere, and Mr. John Darcy, eldest son of the
Earl of Holderness, attended. When the centenary
anniversary of that glorious event was commemorated
in Derbyshire, in 1788, the committee dined on the
preceding day at this house; and on the anniversary,
a sermon was preached in the parish church by Dr.
Pegge, the celebrated antiquary, then rector, before the
descendants of these illustrious revolutionists, and a
large assemblage of the most distinguished families of
the county, who afterwards went in procession to take
refreshment at the Revolution House, and then proceeded
to Chesterfield to dinner. A subscription was
then opened for erecting a column on Whittington
moor, in memory of the Revolution, but the design was
abandoned, in consequence, as it is supposed, of the
revolution which so speedily followed in France. The
Chesterfield races are held on this moor.